 How do I make sure that the potential customer sees my property at its best?
You have various tools available in your Control Panel to help you to attract more visitors to your page and to make your page appear fresh and attractive.
Here's a quick run through of what you can do.
For rental properties:
- Keep text and photos up to date. Go to My Rental Property > Update Property Details to update text. Go to My Rental Property > Manage Photos to add/remove photos. Follow the onscreen instructions.
- Keep availability updated once a week. This will ensure that in searches by date your property appears higher in the results than properties where the availability is no longer active. Go to My Rental Property > Update Availability.
- Add a promotion. Promotions appear on your page and on the main promotion listing. Visitors can search the promotion by date and area. Go to My Promotions to add a promotion.
- Add guestbook reviews. Guestbook reviews are listed on your page and also on the reviews section of Chalets Direct with links back to your page. Go to Property Guestbooks to add a review.
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How do I get more people to look at my page?
Use the tools in your Control Panel to get more visitors. The key things to do are;
For rental properties:
- Keep availability up to date. Availability should be updated once a week to remain current. If availability is up to date your property will appear higher in search results, (where a user is searching by date), than properties where the availability has lapsed. There is a quick update button you can use if nothing has changed since the previous time you updted.
My Property > Update Availability
- Add promotions. Adding a promotion will give you visibility on other areas of the site - eg. the main promotions listing at www.chaletsdirect.com/scripts/promotions.asp. You can also boost your promotion to appear on the home page, the blog, the search page and other key areas of the site.
My Promotions
For both rental and sales properties:
- Use the Solutions Room. When you reply to a Solutions Room post there is automatically another link to your property page. www.chaletsdirect.com/forum/category-view.asp
- Become a guest blogger. If you submit a blog to us we will automatically include links to your page and website. Blogs can be on any aspect of mountain life but should not be accommodation specific. They should provide information for the visitor. To submit a blog please contact us at info@chaletsdirect.com.
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How can my rental property appear higher in the search results?
When a user performs a search by date your properties will appear higher in the results if your availability is up to date.
To update availability go to My Property > Update Availability.
If you have multiple properties choose the property you wish to update and click the Update button. Follow the onscreen instructions.
Availability should be updated once week to keep it active and current. If nothing has changed since the previous time you updated there is a quick update button at the bottom of the Update Availability page.
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How do I get more visibility and shout more loudly about my rental property?
 Add a promotion to your page and boost it to get greater visibility around the site.
By adding a promotion to your property page you can advertise specific products, periods, etc. The promotion appears on your page but is also visible in the promotions listing which is visible throughout Chalets Direct. The promotion entry provides links back to your page.
Boosting a promotion will give you visibility on the home page, the search page, the blog, our Facebook page and more. Certain boosted promotions are also selected to appear on our Latest & Greatest newsletter.
My Promotions
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How do I target specific types of clients eg. those looking for short breaks, luxury properties, groups?
We have specific areas on Chalets Direct designed for people looking for different types of holiday such as short breaks, long weekends, luxury holidays, group holidays.
These areas are linked throughout the site and from the home page.
Upgrading your subscription to appear on these pages gives you extra visibility with clickthroughs to both your property page(s) and your website.
To appear on these areas please contact us at: info@chaletsdirect.com
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How do I show prices on my property pages?
- You have 2 options;
- either use a Chalets Direct price page
- or link to a price page on your own website.
- Select the option you wish to use and follow the steps.
If you choose to not show prices clicking the price button will open an enquiry form where visitors can send you an email.
If you choose to have a link to your price page make sure you update the link if you change your website. Visitors who click through to your website are unlikely to to then return to your Chalets Direct page to send an email to you.
NB. We believe that price information is vital and that it should be readily available for visitors to your pages.
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Where can I see how many people have looked at my page?
In My Statistics in your Control Panel.
In your statistics table you will see how many people came to your page and get a good idea of what they did when they got there.
There are 2 tables in your Statistics view - one for sales property and one for rental properties.
Sales Properties table: divided into 3 areas:
- The top 2 rows show how many times the page was viewed and was matched to searches.
- The next row shows how often you interacted with the page - ie. how often you made updates to the information/photos.
- The bottom row shows you the total number of email enquiries sent from the page.
Rental Properties table: divided into 3 areas:
- The top 3 rows show how many times the page was viewed.
- The next 3 rows show how often you interacted with the page - eg how often you made updates to the information/photos, how often you updated availability, how often you used the promotion area.
- The bottom row shows you the total number of interactions from potential customers ie. how often they clicked through to your website, clicked on the price button or sent an email enquiry.
Below the table is a bar graph showing you the breakdown of customer interactions.
From the statistics table you can work out your ratio of page views to interactions - ie how many people who looked at your page went further down the line with you. You can usually improve your ratio by improving your own interactions with your page.
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How do I add a promotion?
To add promotions to your rental property pages;
- Go to My Promotions.
- Select 'Add new promotion' or 'Add and Boost a new promotion'.
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
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How do I use the Solutions Room?
The Solutions Room is our unique 'forum' area.
Whilst on the outside it looks like a forum behind the scenes there are some very clever processes going on which match requests to advertisers who fit the bill.
Very simply, this is how it works:
- A holidaymaker posts a request for a holiday - he/she may specify area, number of people, dates - or they may be quite vague in their requirements.
- Once the request is posted our system checks through all the properties on Chalets Direct and selects those that are relevant.
- A notification is sent out to the advertisers of those properties who can then post reply to that request.
There is also a Solutions Room for people looking for property to buy which works on exactly the same principle - they post what they are looking for, if you match their criteria you are notified.
That's it in a nutshell but there's a lot more to it. For full details of how to get around the Solutions Room please see the Solutions Room faq in your Control Panel.
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Why do I need to update availability?
We advise you to activate your availability and keep it active by logging in just once a week to update it. The reasons for this are:
- Visitors will have the most recent information and so can send a more qualified enquiry - therefore not wasting their time or yours'.
- The availability function also powers our search - so if a visitor is making a search by date you will come higher in the search results than non-updated properties. Updating your availability regularly means that you'll come nearer the top of the list.
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How do I add Guestbook reviews to my page?
To add a Guestbook review to your rental property page:
- Go to Property Guestbooks
- If a guestbook is disabled against a property you must enable it by choosing the "enable" radio button.
- Click the "Add a Guestbook Review" button and follow the onscreen instructions.
Please note: guestbook reviews have to be approved by Chalets Direct before they go live.
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How do I edit the text on my property pages?
For rental properties:
In your Control Panel go to: My Rental Property > Update Property Details.
You can then choose which text to update:
- At a Glance - updates the details at the top of your page next to the main photo.
- Page Text - opens the main page editor where you can edit each section. Opens in a new window. When you have made changes click the "Apply Changes" button at the top.
- Facilities - choose from a list of facilities to add to your property.
For sales properties:
Choose the property you wish to update and then choose Step 1, 2, 3 or 4. Mouseover the link for each step to find which areas are covered in that ste.
Eg; step 1 - edit basic details, step 2 edit descriptions etc.
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How do I add/remove/replace photos on my page?
Rental properties: In your Contol Panel go to My Rental Property > Manage Photos. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Sales properties: In your Contol Panel go to My Sales Property > Manage Photos. Follow the on-screen instructions.
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